Ashes holders or not, English cricket can ill-afford to treat its patrons so shabbily. A large section of this ground has been closed off because the lack of ticket sales for this Test could not justify its opening, due to the extra stewarding costs that would incur.
You’d think therefore, that ensuring a fulsome experience for those that do turn up, would be a given, but while that was certainly the case here for the Ashes Test two years ago, it wasn’t yesterday.
Not that England gave the 7,000 spectators present much to be grateful for either after Sri Lanka ended the day 133-2, after winning the toss and electing to bat. With the covers in place until just before the start, they probably expected a seaming pitch and England’s Ashes winning bowlers to run rampant on it.
If the first transpired, to a degree, the devastating bowling did not, as evidenced by the 93-run opening partnership between Dilshan and Tharanga Paranavitana.
England’s pace bowlers failure to fire with the new ball was partly due to the blustery conditions, which make it devilishly difficult to find a rhythm, and partly because they have not bowled much in first-class cricket since the end of the Sydney Test last January.
This season James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who shared the new ball yesterday, have bowled 71 and 59 overs this season respectively, enough to get rid of any rust but not to find a good sheen.
As a result, they gave the impression that they were suffering from the tension from expectation that sometimes overcomes bowlers after their captain has won the toss and put a side in. Broad, especially, was off beam, and everyone who has seen him bowl for Nottinghamshire this season reckon he was undercooked for this Test.
How much his recent injuries contributed to that impression is not clear, but the vigour of youth is quickly replaced by something more circumspect once the knocks mount up.
Anderson did not leak as many runs in his opening salvo, he was equally guilty in allowing the left-handed Paranavitana leave more than he had to play.
Dilshan doesn’t leave many alone, however wide of off-stump they are. Judging from the unfettered way he reached fifty, his attacking philosophy has not been dulled by captaincy or the early season pitches in England.
Over the years the impression in some circles, false as it happens, has grown that he is little more than a dasher. But yesterday he passed 4,000 Test runs, becoming only the ninth Sri Lankan batsmen to reach the milestone.
Aggressive instincts can work against you though and no sooner had he acknowledged his fifty, than was bowled by Graeme Swann after bottom-edging a cut shot that would have been less risky had it limited its ambition to two runs rather than four.
The breakthrough achieved after Swann having give Andrew Strauss some belated control, England got the prized wicket of Kumar Sangakkara, though it needed some sharp eyes by the Rod Tucker, the TV umpire, after Aleem Dar had initially turned down Anderson’s appeal for an edge.
From every replay angle it looked as if Dar’s judgment had been right until Hotspot registered the merest dot of heat as the ball brushed against a few microns of bat.
Although Snicko, not yet used a as tool for such decisions, later confirmed it, Sangakkara has a big sponsor’s label on his bat that overlaps the edges. It wouldn’t be too far fetched, given the faintness of the contact, that he might have enjoyed a different outcome had it not been there.
His fall brought Mahela Jayawardene to join Paranavitana, now applying himself with resolve of an old hand on the sluggish pitch.
But Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s finest batsman of all time, did not look as assured as the tall left-hander, who passed 1000 Test runs en route to a watchful fifty made off 145 balls.
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